


Perished Dreams

by louvreangel



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Best Friends, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Dark, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Partners to Lovers, Spoilers, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louvreangel/pseuds/louvreangel
Summary: *Endgame spoilers if you still haven't seen the movie*He had so much to lose and nothing to lose, all at the same time. So he was going back for her. For her body. That was what he had in mind. After all, the least he could do was arrange a proper funeral for her and finally mourn after her.





	1. Going Back

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Spoilers for Endgame. Don't continue if you don't want to get any spoilers.
> 
> Warning 2: This might not end well. I still don't know. I'm trying to go for a "Fix-it" but I don't think my emotion state is well enough to actually manage a good fix-it fanfiction. This might feel heavy and saddening at first. Will get better though.
> 
> This will be a three-part fanfiction.

_Love, love is a verb_

_Love is a doing word_

_Fearless on my breath_

_Gentle impulsion_

_Shakes me, makes me lighter_

_Fearless on my breath_

_xx Massive Attack – Teardrop_

* * *

 

Vormir.

_Again_.

Once again he was up on that mountain.

The least he could do was bring her body back and have a proper funeral, a proper goodbye for the woman who sacrificed herself to save his worthless ass from death.

He had so much he wanted to tell her. He didn’t actually want to see her dead body once more but he was going to swallow that lump in his throat, straighten his shoulders and man the fuck up to carry her lifeless body back where it originally belonged to.

When the red-faced man—Red Skull—reached him floating on air and looked up at him from under his cape, Clint had nothing but determination in his eyes.

“At least give me back her body,” Clint demanded, his voice was strong and filled with confidence. He really was certain on why he was there at that moment.

Red Skull kept a straight face while looking at Clint’s blue eyes. “It’s not here anymore,” was all he said as a reply.

Clint narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Clint asked with even more determination but got no answer from him. That only made him feel angrier than he already was and approached the demon-looking-thing’s form with big steps. “Do you go after dead bodies and bury them somewhere else then? Is that what your purpose here is? Because, let’s face it, it’d be pretty ridicilous if you were only here for telling people that they have to make a fucking choice.”

It was then he finally got a reaction from Red Skull. The man smiled at him, understanding Clint had no idea of who he was and why he was up on this mountain and held his index finger in the air, pointing at the cliff where Natasha and Clint fought over to jump from.

“Go look for yourself then, young man,” Red Skull said with ease and returned back to his original spot, not looking back to see if Clint was following him or not. It wasn’t his job to pry anyways. He once knew what it felt like to hold the stone and feel invincible. Oh how tempting it was to hold it, possess it, own it and have so much power within. Now he was only able to watch people sacrifice themselves to get a hold of it.

Clint walked over to the cliff slowly and looked down to see nothing but darkness. It was a long fall, one that no one could survive. One that Natasha couldn’t survive. One that Natasha—even though he liked to think that it was possible—couldn’t have survived. It was such a weird feeling being here all over again. All alone.

That’s when he heard Red Skull talking to him.

“You can’t bring her back.”

Clint looked back to see where he was standing and said with an angry face, “I just want her body, that’s all. I want to be able to mourn for her properly.” He almost spat his words to the man’s weird face.

Red Skull gave him a weird look but said nothing further.

Clint took his grapple out of his backpack and even though he knew he couldn’t see nothing, even with a flashlight, he was still going to try to go down the pit of hell if that red-faced fucker wouldn’t try something on him. Just to get her lifeless body. Just to look at her once more and tell her that he was sorry.

He was sorry for everything.

He regretted everything.

He regretted not having informed her that he was alive.

He regretted not seeking her out earlier.

He regretted abandoning her after everybody’s disappeared.

He regretted having become a man he promised he left behind more than fifteen years ago.

One chance, that was all he asked for. One chance to say the things he wanted to say to her—even if she wouldn’t be able to hear him anymore.

He looked down the cliff once more and sighed.

“Here goes nothing,” he whispered to himself and started going down from the pit. 


	2. Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his journey down the pit of hell, Natasha's dead body won't be the only thing he will encounter.

_“Let me go.”_

_“No, please don’t.”_

_“It’s okay.”_

_“No.”_

He suddenly woke up to the sounds in his head, seeing the flashback of what had happened between him and Natasha a month ago in front of his eyes.

He was very confused as he stood up and looked around himself of any clue how on earth he had fallen asleep. Everything was dark, he couldn’t see his grapple anymore and he was beginning to think that he might have died while trying to go down the cliff. That could explain why he was waking up from sleep with a flashback of his past.

But then he saw _her_.

Her body was lying on the cold floor, looking pretty pale. It didn’t look like there was any damage to the body though. Blood wasn’t coming out of her skull anymore.

With the little details he was noticing, he started to approach her body cautiously.  He was scared. Scared to see her like that again. Scared to see her dead, wide open eyes looking through his soul.

Just as he came to stand right next to the body, the body vanished into thin air. His hand that was coming closer to her body on the ground stopped midway as he noticed the body wasn’t there anymore.

He straightened his posture immediately, his body alerted and reached for his bow and arrow behind his back, to find that they weren’t there.

He looked to his right, his left and his back right away to see any threat coming his way but he saw nothing.

“What the hell is—” he started of saying but someone’s silky soft voice interrupted him.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Clint’s eyes opened wide with surprise as he saw a woman’s walking figure approaching him. The woman had red with blonde on the roots hair and looked so much like Natasha. Yet, it couldn’t be Natasha, right? She was dead the last time he checked.

“Don’t be scared,” she said with her incredibly convincing voice and he found himself unable to move from where he was standing.

She was right in front of him now, standing too close.

That’s when he saw it.

Even the whites of her eyes were black, her body looked like it was rotten, her hands a weird grey colour.

He took a step back from whatever the hell was in front of him because he was sure as hell that it _wasn’t_ Nat.

Without his weapons he felt vulnerable but he could still fight with his bare hands. Something he had done a million times before.

But she was fast. She ran to him and grabbed him by his shoulders, held him up in the air and threw him to the floor as hard as she could. “You shouldn’t be here!” the woman screamed at him and punched him in the face, before Clint could even try to stand up.

Then it all went black.

When he opened his eyes back again and looked around himself in a panic, he saw that he was in the middle of the cliff going down, his grapple still safely wrapped around his waist. The heavy fog was blocking his view so he couldn’t see much.

This place wasn’t going to let him go down this road without being a pain in the ass, he understood. There was something supernatural here, something more sinister than just the guy with the black cape. Red Skull or whatever his name was, this had to be his doing, Clint thought to himself.

He wasn’t going to give up though. That was absolutely not why he was there.

So he kept going until his feet touched something solid and he knew he must have reached the bottom. He detached himself from the rope and with his flashlight in hand, he started looking around. There was nothing to see in the view in front of him. The fog was covering everywhere, it was dark and there was snow under his feet. He was leaving a mark with every step he took.

Clint put his hand behind his back to feel his bow and arrows there and when he felt them there, he sighed in relief.

At least he could tell himself this right now wasn’t another hallucination or a nightmare.

He didn’t know how long he was supposed to walk or where he was supposed to walk when there was so much fog in the area. It was frustrating really, trying to see something in the near distance and not being able to see even in front of where you’re going.

He left miserable. There was nothing to guide him. His flashlight wasn’t enough and unfortunately there weren’t any signs which could show him where deadbodies were thrown to, so, he didn’t have much clue to go on with.

So he kept walking on one straight line, sometimes looking back to see if anything or anyone was following him.

Eventually he got somewhere that the fog wasn’t heavily covering the area anymore. Natasha’s body was still nowhere to be found though, so Clint started searching the area as much as he could. Until he could find a clue, he was going to keep looking.

Suddenly, there it was again. The thing looking like Natasha was in the far distance, he could see a shadowy figure approaching him again.

This time, he took his bow and arrow in his hand, ready to shoot the thing right in the head. A clean headshot could make him feel so much better at that moment.

“Are you ready to sacrifice yourself?” asked the approaching figure and vanished again.

He looked around himself and heard its voice again. “Would you sacrifice your life to bring _her_ back to life?”

Clint couldn’t see the figure anymore, it was as if someone from far far away was talking to him in a whisper. It felt weird but he still gave a response anyway. “Look, I just want her body back—” he started off but was interrupted once again.

“That’s not what I asked!” the voice said, the anger in its voice could be felt in the deepest parts of your body. It could shake you to your core and scare the shit out of you. Clint wasn’t feeling safe and sound anymore, not that he was feeling neither of those things much before.

“I asked,” the voice said and repeated, “Would you sacrifice your life to bring _her_ back to life?”

Clint stopped looking around himself and stood his ground. He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath.

He thought he only came here to bring her body back. Why was this turning into one of Stephen King’s novels? It was supposed to be an easy retrieval mission; go in, take whatever you need, eliminate any threats, go out. Mission accomplished.

Then Laura’s face popped up right in front of his eyes. Then his kids.

They were happy, really. They were happy to be back, they were happy to be together again. They had felt no pain when they turned into dust. It was all blank for them. They didn’t know what happened, they had no idea it had been 5 years after the incident. They just knew that they disappeared and that they came back.

That was it.

They didn’t know the pain Clint beared for all those five years. They didn’t know he went after people who didn’t turn into dust. They didn’t know he became a murderer in the time between. They didn’t know he wasn’t the man he was before anymore. They didn’t know because he wasn’t the man he used to be anymore, he couldn’t go to Natasha. He couldn’t seek out her help. He couldn’t look her in the eyes and admit he needed help. Especially from her. They didn’t know Clint needed Natasha the most in his life to soothe his pain but had no courage to face her.

They basically knew _nothing_ at all.

Then he remembered Natasha’s absence. It had been a month since everything came to an end, supposedly everything was fixed and yet it actually wasn’t. Nobody could bring Natasha back, she was eternally dead and Clint just refused to believe that. And even if she was dead, he knew she deserved better so he wanted to go back for her body. Everybody agreed with him immediately but he wanted nobody along with him. He wanted to do this alone, by himself.

Her absence had been devastating. He was scared to think or say that it had been more devastating than the absence of his family, but deep down inside, it had been exactly that way.

He could never admit it, of course, he would never accept it either but it was true.

He knew that day, when they were up on this mountain, one of them had to die and he was ready to sacrifice himself for her, even though he had a family to go back to if the plan worked. Clint made the decision at that moment to sacrifice himself for her and never see his family again just to let Natasha live. He was willing to throw the chance of seeing his family again out the window just to let her see another sunrise. He cared for her way too much to let her die in his place.

It was actually pretty clear to him. The answer to the question that he was being asked.

So he opened his eyes and looked in front of himself, his posture filled with confidence. He didn’t even hesitate for a second when he said, “Yes, I would.”

Then suddenly, it all went black.


	3. Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've updated, but, I started this road thinking I could write a "fix-it" for these two. Turns out, I fucking can't. I don't know how to bring Natasha back, I don't know how people can write fix-its and I'm really envious of those who can. It shows I'm not one of them. 
> 
> You literally have no idea how many times I wrote and erased this chapter. Let me tell you, five fucking times. Then I accepted the fact that I basically can't bring myself to write a fix-it for them. It's been a whole month and I still don't want to accept that in Endgame they didn't even acknowledge her death properly. Clint didn't even have any time to mourn for her, like seriously, she died like a hero and was almost forgotten as soon as Tony died.
> 
> So... This chapter at one point was very rushed, you could probably tell. Job has been busy, these past few weeks were very busy for me so I found little time to finish this fanfic. I'm sorry if I'm letting anyone down by writing such lazy ass, weak chapter as an epilogue. I'm mostly disappointing myself but I couldn't put it on hiatus either. I like to finish what I started so... here you go, guys. 
> 
> Thanks to anyone who's read it, gave it kudos, commented. Appreciate it.
> 
> xoxo louvreangel

_“Thank you,” she whispered as she stood by his, looking down from the balcony of the party that was being held for all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Agents and their supervisors would come up with a party every year for Christmas, they would do the party in their Headquarters and whoever had no mission to go to would join it._

_This year, Strike Team: Delta was free of a mission, so they were spending their time at the party with their friends._

_Clint turned his head to her. He looked confused. “What for?”_

_Natasha didn’t look at him. “For bringing me in. For not killing me that day and thinking I deserved a second chance. No one else would do what you did.”_

_Clint put his hand on her shoulder and smiled. It was a soft, genuine smile lifting up his face, making him look younger than he was. “That was years ago, Nat. You thanked me enough for it everytime you did something good. Everytime you fought by my side and everytime you saved my ass, you thanked me,” he said with a voice that held so many emotions. “I told you before, you never need to thank me for anything.”_

_That was then Natasha turned to him and looked into his eyes like she was searching for some type of particular emotion there. “I never thanked you verbally before, though. You deserve it. So... Thank you,” she said with all honesty._

_Clint took his hand that was on her shoulder to her cheek and cupped it gently. He held her gaze and they looked at each other silently, without words, they conveyed every single emotion they had to each other. It was a moment where there was no need for words. In this beautiful, joyful night, there wasn’t much to talk about either._

_Natasha finally chose to close her eyes and let this feeling sink in. His hand on her cheek has been there before to wipe off her tears, there were some nights where she would just cry and... Well. There was a side of her only Clint knew and that side she would show no one else. Ever._

_She looked mesmerizing._

_And he was mesmerized._

_So he dipped his head and kissed her lips for a short moment before withdrawing himself. This was a line he promised himself years ago that he wouldn’t pass. This line was there to protect both of them from any form of sentiment._

_But when she opened her eyes, looked at him in complete bewilderment and searched his eyes for any sign of regret and saw no such thing, she put her hands on his chest and kissed him back._

_Her lips tasted like the champagne they drank earlier._

Clint woke up suddenly, feeling cold and drenched in water with a very familiar taste in his mouth that he used to know so well. This was the third time he woke up in this stupid ass place from a sleep that he didn’t remember falling in the first place.

He looked around himself thinking that maybe this nightmare was over and finally he was dead. These flashbacks he kept having were damaging his already damaged mental health even further and he felt like he had no strength left to move on at that point. He had no hope of returning home—which he knew the risks of coming here so returning back wasn’t his first priority and he was starting to feel even more miserable than before.

Then he realised where he was.

This was the exact spot where he held the soul stone in his hand.

Confused, he stood up and looked up at the orange sky to see anything there.

In complete silence, he waited for something to happen but nothing happened. The silence was growing bigger every second, his breathing was the only sound he kept hearing in his ears and it was frustrating.

His heartbeating, his breathing was filling his ears, his senses were highly alerted to any small detail so it was like he was waiting for his pray to come so he could hunt it. This time though, he didn’t feel like the hunter at all. He felt like someone was playing a wicked game on him, joking with him, mocking his fear, taking every emotion in his body and twisting it into a not-funny dad joke.

Clint knew he had to get out of this place before going insane but his feet chose not to obey him.

Because his eyes were seeing a body on the watery ground in the distance, second time around.

He wasn’t going to fall for it though. With his sharp eyes, his stiff body, he stood his ground and kept looking at the body that was lying there. He wasn’t going to approach it this time, he decided. _Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me._

Though, after minutes passed and there was no movement whatsoever around him or from the body, he became more and more skeptical and distressed. The dilemma was big but being afraid was not a solution. He had to take a deep breath, hold it in, calm his nerves, slow his heartbeats and walk towards the body. Even if this was a fucked up nightmare or a joke someone was playing on him, he had to take an action on it. He couldn’t keep standing like a statue in the middle of literally _nowhere_.

When he reached the body and saw it was still there and looked a lot like Natasha this time, he knelt beside it cautiously. With his trembling hands, he checked her pulse on her neck and got nothing. There was no beating, no movement from the lifeless body under his hand.

“Not many people can climb off that cliff and not many of them would be willing to sacrifice themselves for _nothing_ before,” he heard the voice again but this time, it was a man’s voice rather than a sinister woman’s so he looked up and saw Red Skull right in front of him. Natasha’s corpse was the only thing seperating them.

Clint stood up and had to strain himself not to attack him right there and then. “Enough with your games! Just let me take her and get the fuck out of here,” he spat his words with so much hatred that it felt like actual toxic on his tongue.

Red Skull smirked at him under his cape with a dark look in his darkened eyes. “A soul for a soul. That’s the rule of the stone.”

“Well, her soul is not in her corpse anymore I’m guessing, so what the hell is your problem?” Clint yelled at him, ready to just grab Natasha’s body and get out of there.

“For the eternal balance, her body _must_ stay in Vormir. Her body without her soul cannot exit this mountain. The rules are simple, son of Edith. This place will keep playing games with your mind and soul, should you choose to keep looking for her dead body,” Red Skull explained with a calm, collected voice that sounded more convincing than anything Clint’s ever heard before.

Clint, however, shook his head as a no. “No. No, I don’t accept that,” he kept saying, mostly to himself rather than the red faced fortune teller in front of him.

“Are you willing to sacrifice your life, just to keep looking for her dead body? Your family is waiting for you.”

At that, Clint couldn’t hold himself back anymore and pounced upon Red Skull with all the strength he possessed within himself. But as soon as he did that, he crashed into an invisible wall and fell flat on his face.

That didn’t stop him though.

He stood up immediately and leaped forward to Natasha’s body on the ground, wrapped his arms around her and put her on his shoulder to hold the body securely.

He was getting the fuck out of there and nobody was going to stop him. Not this time.

As soon as he secured her body on his shoulder, he touched the belt of his suit and pressed the red liquid to bring them back in time once again. This time, he wasn’t coming back alone from this fucked up journey.

* * *

When he opened his eyes in a whole different place this time, all his friends were waiting for him around the room.

They rushed to his side immediately, not wasting a second and helped him get Natasha’s body on the ground. Clint was feeling awful and was awfully quite, not looking like it had been an easy journey at all.

The next day, they held a beautiful funeral for her. By the same lake where they let Tony go. The water was crystal clear, the weather was chilly but not too cold. The sky was a lovely blue colour, no sign of dark clouds. It was such a nice day and felt like a big nightmare to acknowledge someone’s death like this.

Clint and his family were there. But he just couldn’t stop himself from thinking, what would it be like if he had stayed there? Maybe with that imaginary Natasha that was talking to him with its almost visible shadow. Could anything have been better that way? Could he have been happy without his family?

Even the thought crossing his mind scared the shit out of him. How could he think of such thing was beyond him at this point.

Natasha's coffin on a little boat was floating on the sea, the flowers on top of it glistened under the sun beautifully.

 _This_ was what she had deserved. A funeral with the people that loved her.

Her body and non-existent soul could finally find some peace.

Then he saw the cliff again. The cliff, the coldness, the snow... The slippery ground, his bow and arrow were in a far distant and he was lying on the cold hard floor. With Natasha's dead body beside him.

"What the hell-" he started off but was cut off once he noticed the dead body's eyes were open and blinking to him.

Clint stood up immediately and so did Natasha.

"You can't leave here. Not with me. You have to go."

_This place will keep playing games with your mind and soul, should you choose to keep looking for her dead body._

Red Skull's words echoed in his mind and he felt his eyes watering. This couldn't be true. He was back. They even held a funeral for her.

How...

He stopped thinking, he stopped trying to deduce the situation and did what he had been wanting to do for so long and hugged the Natasha in front of him.

He cried for how long he didn't know.

He cried on her shoulder, a shadow, an imitation of Natasha and found solace in the fact that at least he got to hug her for one last time.

"Your family is waiting for you, Clint. Go," said Natasha, this time with a soft voice and didn't choose to attack him out of nowhere.

He didn't know what to believe in anymore. What was reality and what was dream, he couldn't tell.

With tears falling down from his cheeks, he let go of her, for one last time and whispered a soft "Goodbye," to her now disappearing silhoutte.

He pushed the button on his suit.

And he was back.

He was back to where he started.

He was back with nothing in his hands, once again, he came back from Vormir with a failure.

One could hope that he could go back one day and actually get her back. One could hope that maybe one day they could find a way to fix this too.

So he waited for that day to come...

For the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you didn't like this chapter, which is totally fine, go back to my notes in the beginning and read it please. Thanks and sorry again, y'all. I hope you understand.
> 
> See you in other fanfics.
> 
> xoxo louvreangel

**Author's Note:**

> See you in the next chapter lovelies...  
> I hope you're recovering from THAT SCENE™ better than I am.
> 
> xoxo


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